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Debate rages over how to best protect satellite systems
BY GEORGE LEOPOLD
Adebate is raging among U.S.
policy wonks over how best to
prevent a "space Pearl Harbor."
ose concerns have grown in recent
years with light-saber-rattling between
the U.S. and China over a debris-gener-
ating Chinese anti-satellite (ASAT) test
in 2007, along with growing tensions
between Moscow and Washington.
Some even worry that increased "coun-
terspace testing" in the form of kinetic
ASAT tests, jamming and the use of
lasers to blind satellite optics could
eventually leave low Earth orbit un-
usable.
e U.S. National Security Space
Strategy highlights the fact that
"space is increasingly congested.
Growing global space activity and
testing of China's destructive anti-
satellite system have increased con-
gestion in important areas in space.
" e debate over space deterrence
is playing out in space policy jour-
nals in which analysts have argued
back and forth over whether the
current U.S military space strategy
requires an overhaul. Meanwhile,
experts are fearful that U.S. space
assets like military communications
satellites are especially vulnerable
to asymmetric warfare. Indeed, the
U.S. military is far more reliant on
space systems than Russia or China,
a reality some policy makers assert
China is attempting to exploit.
As U.S. counterspace strategy
evolves, experts are debating wheth-
er traditional space deterrence
should evolve along with growing
threats. Proposed revisions to the
U.S military space strategy have
argued for a layered approach to
deterring space attacks. Recommen-
dations submitted to the Defense
Department in 2014 by the Eisenhower
Center for Space and Defense Stud-
ies outlined a series of escalating steps
aimed at blunting asymmetric attacks
on U.S. space assets.
e proposed layered defenses in-
clude: diplomacy and enforcement of
international norms; military and com-
mercial alliances; resilience, or demon-
strating the ability to withstand a space
attack; and, nally, retaliation.
Retaliation would include a "dem-
onstrated ability of the United States
to deliver unacceptable damage even if
confronted with a broad spectrum of
attacks against its space assets as well
as those available to its allies and the
commercial sector," Ambassador Roger
G. Harrison and retired Lt. Col. Deron
Jackson of the Eisenhower Center wrote
in the journal e Space Review. Har-
rison and Jackson, respectively the
former and current directors of the
Eisenhower Center, were responding to
criticism of the think tank's space deter-
rence proposals.
Christopher Stone, a space policy
analyst, argued that the layered de-
fense approach leaves U.S. space assets
vulnerable in an asymmetric con ict.
China followed its 2007 test with
additional kinetic ASAT tests along
with "lasing of satellites and an ap-
parent new norm of nation-state
behavior in space via the tripling of
reversible counterspace attacks such
as jamming and other means of in-
terference," Stone asserted.
In response, Harrison and Jack-
son acknowledged: "An enemy that
can put the United States o balance
through an attack on space sys-
tems, but is not equally dependent
on space systems to coordinate its
own military operations, will be on
its way to victory while American
strategists are looking to assess the
e ects of retaliation against the en-
emy's space assets."
Stone argues that military plan-
ners must design "future architec-
tures and strategies for space se-
curity so that we are better able to
tailor our deterrence strategy to the
adversaries we might face, and are
already facing...."
To some extent, the Air Force
has begun doing just that with the
planned launched of maneuverable
communications satellites and in-
creased testing of laser weapons that
could be used as part of an overall
counterspace strategy. n
Analysts: space risk is growing
Analysts stress the need to protect
satellites such as the Wideband Global
SATCOM spacecraft.
DefenseSystems.com | JULY/AUGUST 2015 27